


The Pay Raise Can't Be Worth It

by blackmetaldahlia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU FBI, AU Werewolves are known, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Alternative Universe - FBI, Gen, Multi, idek what to tag this i dont know how this wORKS, windbreakers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmetaldahlia/pseuds/blackmetaldahlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Special Agent Derek Hale of the Supernatural Division had assumed this would be a simple enough case - confirm whether the notorious Argent family was illegally selling firearms and hunting werewolves. If he had gone on his own, it probably would have been. But no, he had to be stuck with two up-and-coming trainees, who certainly seemed intent on making his life a living hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So I've never uploaded anything to AO3 before. This is a WIP, but I know relatively where I want it to go and intend to update every few days or so, and I'm a few thousand words ahead of this. It'll probably end up around 20k. Inspired by this tumblr post: http://jfcgreenberg.tumblr.com/post/77102897384/eeames-why-isnt-there-a-fic-where-people-must

From the very short explanation in the email Special Agent Derek Hale had received twenty minutes ago, it definitely sounded like he was getting some sort of vacation. Simply confirming whether or not the notorious Argent family was hunting werewolves and selling illegal weapons. And then he had gotten to the part about actually just being the handler to a couple of children. Literal children. Barely of legal drinking age.

The words “prodigies” and “pay raise” popped up a lot.

Naturally, he had stormed right to Director Finstock’s office to demand an explanation.

“Sorry, kiddo. We need someone who looks vaguely like both of our trainees, and someone who can keep it together should they fuck it up. That narrows it down to you, and Peter. And you know how good your uncle is with kids.”

“Why would you send a couple of baby-faced idiots into this high-profile a case?” Derek Hale asked incredulously. “Why would you send a couple of baby-faced idiots with me into this high-profile a case?”

Finstock heaved a sigh and ran his hands through his hair, leaving it actually a little bit less of a tousled mess than it was before. “One of them’s a werewolf, so if worst comes to worst you can always alpha up on his ass.” Derek made a face. “The other’s...well, he’s not a werewolf. We’re not entirely sure he’s human either, but the sheer volume of Adderall he’s on makes the tests useless. He’s brilliant, though. Don’t bother trying at his first name, some Polish shit, he just goes by Stiles. In a perfect world, we’d just send one of them with you. Probably the werewolf kid.”

Derek sensed a ‘but.’ And it wasn’t the sort of ‘but’ he needed enhanced werewolf senses for. “But…?” he asked tentatively.

“But they’re attached at the hip, and according to our files literally function worse without each other. Bilinski is McCall’s pack, as weird as it sounds. They’re step-brothers, they’ve literally never been in different classes, last Halloween party they reportedly went as conjoined twins, and nobody noticed until Stilinski accidentally caught his sleeve on fire. But they both need the field experience.” Finstock shrugged. “It’s this or the kitsune issue in Tokyo, and I don’t think you’d want to deal with the Yakuza werewolves.”

The last time Derek got in a fight with a Yakuza werewolf, it had ended with him pulling arrows out of his kidneys - yes, both of them - and having to call in Agent Yukimura with her ridiculous mountain ash nunchucks. “E-mail me their files, then,” he said as he stood up. “I’ll meet them at the airport tomorrow evening.”

Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski were arguing at the baggage claim over whether or not to go check into the hotel early for the two hours of spare time they had before meeting their fake dad (“Handler!” Finstock had yelled to no avail), or to explore the ridiculous sprawling airport terminals of LAX. Stiles, who was dead set on recreating Die Hard (with himself in the role of Alan Rickman), was arguing for the former. Scott, who had spent his entire life listening to his San Franciscan mother talk shit about SoCal, was intent on the latter.

“We wouldn’t even have enough time for you to take proper hostages,” Scott pleaded as their suitcases ominously glided towards them on the conveyor belt. “And it’d be cheating if I helped you! Bruce Willis would never.”

“Bruce Willis would _totally_. Bruce Willis recognizes the need for a proper villain to make himself seem more badass, and as long as he is secure in his ability to save everyone’s lives and look like a totally badass while doing it. Don’t you wanna be Bruce Willis, Scott? Don’t you?”

Scott grabbed their bulging suitcases and heaved them both off the conveyor belt with minimal effort, before chucking the tacky camo-patterned one at Stiles (“Dude!”), whose knees immediately buckled under the sudden onslaught of a suitcase full of computer parts. “In a perfect world I would be Michelle Rodriguez. I don’t even want to be Bruce Willis that badly. If I wanted to be a boring bald white guy I’d be Statham, hands down. Have you seen his powerful browline?”

Stiles had gotten control of his suitcase and was carefully testing how well the now-cracked wheels rolled on the horrifically garish carpet. “You’re banned from ever watching _Transporter_ ever again. Ever. Go ahead and be gay for Statham, I don’t give a shit, I’m gay for him too, but do not ever do the dreamy Statham eyes at me again, I swear to - “

“I smell Mexican food,” Scott cut in. “Dude. Real Mexican food.”

According to Stiles, Scott was better at tracking Authentic Mexican Food than anyone else in the FBI’s supernatural division (a division where Stiles had unofficially audited the classes for, mostly because he refused to let Scott take a class by himself, and also because supernatural lore was way more interesting than history of law). Technically, he was just the best tracker in general, but having a specific title made it more impressive, regardless of the inanity of the object being tracked. They had a ‘field trip’ to Texas once, and may have hopped the border every other night for some real salsa.

“How real we talking?” Stiles asked, immediately getting down to business. They had been in Virginia for a year and a half, and the closest thing to mexican food in the area was a goddamn Taco Bell. Tupperware tamales shipped with love from Washington were never quite enough to satisfy the raging hunger for food that categorically didn’t suck.

“We’re talking epazote and adobo.” He sniffed. “The epazote is fresh. Follow me.”

And this was why when Derek Hale got off his connecting flight from LaGuardia, his trainees weren’t waiting for him at the gate. This was why he found them (through the use of his fully extended senses) at a restaurant halfway down the street, splitting a plate of chile rellano.

“This isn’t professional,” he informed them coldly as he stole the twitchier one’s fork. “Skipping out on picking up your handler for some food?”

“Some food?” McCall (presumably) asked in a near comically high voice. Stilinski (Bilinski?)’s eyes widened and his body language immediately went to the defensive. “Some? This food is a gift, a gift we have been deprived of for over a year. This is the sort of food your abuela makes for your 18th birthday! I would leave you for dead for this food!”

“You’re making a scene,” Derek said, semi-calmly. McCall’s file had certainly made him out to be the more stable of the two. Derek was going to have words with Finstock. “They said you were fresh meat. Don’t make a scene within hours of arriving at your destination.” He picked a chile off the plate with the stolen fork and made a show of calmly eating it.

Shit. That was really good. He didn’t let it show, though. Didn’t want the kid to get a big head about his palette. Apparently he didn’t do a good enough job, though, since McCall immediately calmed down and looked very pleased with himself. He also made a few gestures with his face at Stilinski, who responded with a very small grin and some sort of morse code in eyebrow waggles. Dammit, they were silent communicators. Dammit, he was still eating the chilis.

“Is that a leather jacket,” Stilinski asked suddenly with such incredulity it didn’t warrant a question mark. “Are you really wearing a _leather jacket_. You’re supposed to be our dad! Dads don’t wear leather jackets!”

And this was why, instead of checking into the hotel they were supposed to stay at for the night before their flight to Beacon Hills, Special Agent Derek Hale was being dragged around Target. The ‘best and brightest’ of their class were trying to talk him into ditching the distressed jeans and leather jacket for khakis and -

“A windbreaker.” Derek eyed the (excruciatingly noisy) jacket. “I can’t sneak around in a windbreaker.” Scott had a bizarrely reverential way of saying ‘windbreaker,’ as though it somehow represented everything about the paternal figure he’d never had. Granted, Stiles had the same tone of voice when he said “fanny pack,” so perhaps Derek was reading too much into it.

“If this goes well, you won’t have to sneak around,” McCall pointed out. “Besides, I’m the sneaky one here. Technically you’re supposed to be backseat. Let us take the reins a little.”

“Let your children run free,” Stilinski added from behind a rack of -

“No sandals,” Derek said shortly. Stilinski, thankfully, recognized this as a futile effort immediately.

“The one with navy details would bring out your eyes,” McCall said, holding up the ugliest excuse for a jacket Derek had ever seen. “It has inside pockets for secret spy things.”

Derek was about to protest extremely violently, in a way that could possibly blow their cover and get all three of them fired, when Stilinski sidled up next to McCall and muttered something in his ear so quietly not even Derek could hear it. The way McCall’s eyes widened, Derek knew it would be trouble.

“Listen.” His voice had a strange sense of gravity to it, as if they were discussing whether or not to fork over millions of dollars or let the terrorists kill the hostages. “If you buy this hella sleek windbreaker, me and Stiles will go so hardcore with the whole held-back-a-year teenager thing. Like, novelty graphic T-shirts and flannel overshirts. Socks with little pot leaves on them. OBEY snapbacks.”

And this was why Derek Hale was wearing a ‘hella sleek’ windbreaker instead of his lucky leather jacket when they landed at the extremely small Beacon Hills airport.

They spent the entire flight working on their backstories. They were all using the last name Delgado - Scott’s mother’s maiden name, apparently - and they would be half brothers from failed college relationships. Scott’s mom will have died in a car crash when he was three, and Stiles’s is somewhere in Monaco. (Derek was working very hard on thinking of them by their first names.) Derek worked from home translating French novels, but decided to move from San Francisco with ‘the economy and all.’

Scott and Stiles had repeatedly assured him that simply saying ‘the economy and all’ would immediately lower all suspicion, and then proceeded to enter a bizarre game of charades where vocalization was not illegal, and they mostly just made fun of politicians.

Prodigies.

According to their files, Scott and Stiles had grown up together in a small town in Washington. Scott had been bitten by a rogue alpha when he was fourteen, and had somehow managed to keep it hidden from his mother (who was a nurse), the school system, and even the FBI recruiters. It wasn’t until they did the blood tests that it came out, and when asked why he didn’t register earlier, he had reportedly cited hate crimes against the supernatural and a natural tendency to lie about whether or not he could sprout sideburns at will.

Stiles had nearly flunked out of middle school, before getting on meds for “the most extreme case of ADHD I have ever seen in my entire life,” according to the doctor. And while his grades were by no means stellar, his amazing abilities for research and hacking had gotten the interest of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and several other countries’ respective alphabet-based organizations.

Long story short, they had both been welcomed into Quantico without even starting their undergrad programs, and had been at the top of their class practically instantly.

This was hard to reconcile with the boys who had spent over an hour trying to talk him into lightening the hair at his temples for a “more authentic dad look.” They actually made some extremely convincing arguments, but not a hair on Derek Hale’s head was ever going to be touched by anything apart from green-apple scented hair gel.

“So what brings you to Beacon Hills?” an overly-friendly airport employee asked, snapping Derek out of his reverie.

“Oh, we’re moving here,” Derek said, caught off guard. “We used to live closer to San Francisco, but, you know. The economy and all.” Scott, who was growling quietly at a vending machine on the other side of the terminal, started choking on laughter. Stiles started pounding on his back.

“Ah, yes,” the employee - Virginia, according to her nametag - said with a nod. “We get that a lot. I’m sure you’ll find it easier to handle here.”

“Yes. Well, I think my son is choking, thank you for your time, have a nice day,” Derek said, half-jogging away from her and over to the nearly dry-heaving McCall.

“The fuck, dude,” Stiles was saying as he pounded increasingly harder on McCall’s back.

“He’s laughing, it’s okay, werewolves can’t die of asphyxiation. At least not self-caused asphyxiation,” Derek whispered quietly to Stiles, before bending down. “Scott, it wasn’t fucking funny,” he growled. This had the opposite intended effect - Scott just started laughing harder. Stiles joined in this time.

“Sorry,” he gasped out after Derek spent far too many seconds staring at them, “I have problems with authority. Scott does too, but he hides them better. But you being all tough-guy is hilarious. Especially considering you’re wearing a windbreaker.”

He had taken time out of his morning maintenance routine to reconcile his black with navy detail windbreaker with an image of paternality, but apparently it had all been a prank after all. He was so telling Finstock about this. And ditching the windbreaker at the next possible opportunity.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Next update might not be until the weekend. Busy week.

And this was why the first impression Chris Argent got of his new neighbor, Derek Delgado, involved Derek slamming open the lid of the big green trash bin in their driveway and preparing to chuck the abomination in.

“You alright there?” he called out as he pulled his own trash can towards the curb.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.” Shit. Argent was wearing a windbreaker. A considerably _sleeker_ windbreaker with _silver_ details, but a windbreaker nonetheless. Shit. He vigorously shook the rumpled fabric over the trash can. “I just managed to get crumbs all over this and we haven’t actually bought a trash can yet. Of all the things to forget.” He made sure to add just a tang of the French Canadian accent it could benefit him to have later, especially if any of the Argents were fluent. It was a smooth lie. He could tell by Argent’s heart rate that he totally bought it. He also heard Scott, in the house, press his head against the window to get a better read on what was going on. “I’m Derek Delgado, we just moved in. Well, the movers moved us in like a week ago, but we were only able to get up here today.” He held out his hand, and Argent shook it.

“Chris. Chris Argent. You picked a good day to move in, this is the sunniest it’s been in a while. Windy, though.”

Small talk. They were literally talking about the weather. “Well, we moved from San Francisco, so the weather’s not too different.”   


“Ah, San Fran. I go up there for work sometimes - I help run gun shows and the like, I’m a bit of a collector to be honest. Can I ask why you moved? It’s such a beautiful city.”   


“You know, the economy and all.” Shit. Shit. Derek couldn’t believe he had actually said that again. He also couldn’t believe that Scott was literally once again choking on his own laughter. “And I heard good things about the schools here.”   


“You have kids?” Argent asked.   


“Yeah - two boys. You?”   


“One daughter. She’ll be a junior. Your kids...middle school?”   


Derek leaned against the trash can and shrugged his windbreaker back on. “High school, actually. I know, I look young. It’s a long story. They’ll be juniors, too.”   


“Damn,” Argent said, looking surprised. But not surprised in a genuine way, in more of a malicious way. It was hard to get a good scent off of him, his cologne was suspiciously strong. It almost smelled like wolfsbane. He’d have to check on that. “You barely look a day over thirty.”   


_You should have let us salt-and-pepper your hair up_ , Scott stage whispered. Derek resisted the urge to make a very rude gesture. It would blow his cover.   


He grinned, somewhat playfully. “Hair dye can work wonders, you know.”   


And this was why the next day, Derek Delgado opened his medicine cabinet to discover not one, but four boxes of Just for Men Sable Black hair dye.   


_ Director Finstock - _   


_ All is going well. McCall and Stilinski are nightmares, but they’re blending in well. Scoping out Argent’s house now. Believe he uses a wolfsbane based cologne. I now own a windbreaker. _   


He paused and erased the last sentence. And then he rewrote it, adding the word ‘unfortunately.’   


Scott and Stiles, Officially Enrolled Beacon Hills High School Students, were also arguing about word choice. “Half-brothers” vs “step-brothers,” to be precise.   


“I’m pretty sure we’re half-brothers. That implies, like, half the same DNA, yeah? And step-brothers is just through marriage.” Stiles sniffed. “I dunno man, it never occurred to me.”   


“You must be the, uh, Delgado brothers?” a sweet voice asked from behind them. They had taken seats for homeroom not exactly in the back of the class, but not quite in the middle. Next to each other, of course.   


Allison Argent. Scott recognized her instantly from the files. He also instantly recognized the tang of wolfsbane and barely managed to himself from wrinkling his nose.   


“Step-brothers,” Scott said, as Stiles said “half-brothers.”   


“It only just occurred to us that only one of us is correct,” Stiles explained sheepishly, playing the idiot teenage boy to a T. “See, we have the same dad, but this loser got stuck with him when his bio-mom died in a car crash and nobody else could take him.”   


“So sympathetic. And this loser got stuck with him because his mom literally up and left the country with no explanation.”   


“Half-brothers, then,” Allison said, as though it was obvious. “You share half of your genepools with your dad.”   


“Told you,” Stiles said. “But yeah. I’m Stiles, this is Scott. And you are?”   


“Allison. Allison Argent. I’m your neighbor, my dad bumped into your dad yesterday. You’re juniors, right? What classes are you taking?”   


Allison seemed like an extremely sweet girl, but the wolfsbane that gently clouded her scent immediately got her on Scott’s suspicious list. He glanced at Stiles - something’s off with her, and the corners of Stiles’s mouth tightened and he sort of half-blinked. I figured.   


Scott had always been sensitive to wolfsbane. Well, ‘always’ meaning since the bite. The second time he had shifted against his will was when Stiles decided the best way to confirm Scott’s newfound lycanthropy was to see whether or not he was suddenly sensitive to wolfsbane. (The first time was the full moon, and that wasn’t a party, either.) So Stiles had broken into his father’s cold case evidence and stolen an extremely small amount of Indian Aconite and told Scott to sniff it.   


The moment he uncorked it, Scott literally leapt out the window and turned up, six hours later, missing a shirt in the Washington wilderness. Stiles had taken his jeep to find him, and in his infinite wisdom had brought the aconite with him. This led to the third time Scott had shifted against his will. A few minutes after Scott had gotten into the jeep - shaking, terrified, and cold - his throat had closed up and his canines had sharpened, and six hours after _that_ he once again climbed into the Stilinski Machine.   


This time Stiles had ditched the aconite.   


So while the whiff of wolfsbane (aconitum lycoctonum, traditional Asian wolfsbane, if Scott wasn’t wrong) in the air was so faint there was a good chance she wasn’t even aware it was there, he still made a point to maneuver carefully through her questions. Not seem too grateful for her showing them around the school, and by no means trying to seem ungrateful.   


But then, he caught the scent of werewolves. Not one. Three, maybe? Four?   


Yeah. Four werewolves. Holy shit. Four werewolves in this small a town? In the high school itself? He had checked, there were no registered packs in Beacon Hills. He didn’t catch any alpha scents, so maybe they were all like him - hiding their powers from everyone. Maybe even their families.   


When he had finally come clean to his mom about the whole werewolf thing - a solid eight years after the night Stiles had decided that they were unequivocally going to find a dead body - she had sat down and put her head in her hands.   


“I should have figured it out,” she had said, quietly. “I volunteered in a supernatural ward when I was in nursing school. Everything fits. Dammit, I should have figured it out.” He still periodically had to tell her it wasn’t her fault, he was an idiot who didn’t really know where to go, there were so many werewolf hunts outside of the big cities and he didn’t want her to worry, he did everything in his power to keep her from finding out.   


It didn’t take long to track down the werewolves. Allison was walking them to the cafeteria when the scent suddenly grew stronger. He loosened his sense of smell. A blonde girl, wearing a leather jacket and twirling a chunk of hair around a well-kept fingernail as she morosely spooned at what was labelled yogurt. A white boy with curly hair and a scarf. Another white boy with close-cut hair and ridiculous cheekbones. And a black boy with a shaved head whose pockets jingled with way more keys than any high schooler ought to have.   


Scott wasn’t sure if they would be able to sense that he was a werewolf. Hell, he hadn’t figured out how to do that until a few years after being bitten. Even in the supernatural division, most of the werewolves were mostly just humans who got cranky around the full moon. Scott, meanwhile, tended to carve into the underside of his desk with his claws when he got antsy, and brushed his fangs every other night. He lounged around half wolfed-out and never used the door when the window worked just as well.   


The way he saw it, the easiest way to hide being a werewolf was to act like it was no big deal. And sure, he had busted six Xbox controllers because playing with his claws out was a bad idea, but when he felt the urge to claw someone’s throat out, he had the control to prevent it from happening.   


Right off, he could tell these kids were not in the same boat. Except the blonde, maybe. She might even have come from one of the old werewolf families - like the Hales - from how naturally she moved. Her regular walk was somewhat wolf-like, while the others’ were more cautious. Scarf-boy’s steps were short, and his shoulders were hunched. Cheekbones stood tall, but his eyes flickered this way and that, as though he wasn’t sure what his ears should focus on. Shaved head was already seated, but his eyes were downcast and Scott could easily tell he was going almost entirely by scent.   


He gestured at Stiles - ‘I’m gonna peace out’. Stiles nodded so subtly Scott almost missed it, and immediately engaged Allison in conversation about her hobbies (competitive archery. Yikes.). He didn’t even bother with the food line, he just walked over to the blonde and sat on the bench across from her.   


“Hi,” he said with a friendly smile. She smiled vaguely back at him and raised her eyebrows as though she didn’t understand why he was talking to her. Couldn’t sense him, then. “I’m Scott. Scott Delgado. And you are?”   


“Erica,” she said, vaguely cautiously. “I’m Erica Reyes. Are you not going to get food, or what?”   


Scott shrugged. “First day here. First day in a school not in San Francisco. I feel like I might throw up. You looked semi-friendly. Or at least as though you weren’t already fully integrated into a super-exclusive, must-perform-a-blood-sacrifice-to-get-into cult-like clique.”   


“Well, you were wrong,” she - Erica - replied with an extremely wolf-like grin. “I require all potential friends to sacrifice their blood, mingled with that of a virgin and that of a newborn goat, to the carved out basin in my gothic mansion’s backyard.” Well, she seemed perfectly friendly, considering she was sitting alone.   


“Shit, no wonder you’re by yourself at this table, then,” he said, trying to make it sound like it was nothing. She certainly seemed to buy it, but it was always harder to read werewolves.   


“Most people can’t survive the process,” she said with a slight shrug. “I sometimes sit with Boyd - that boy over there - “ she nodded at the black boy with the shaved head, “but, you know. I recently told him his free trial of friendship was up and it was time to do some blood magic. It’s been a bit strained.”   


Wait, Scott thought suddenly. Maybe she wasn’t joking. “Just to be clear,” he said, overexaggerating all of his facial movements, “you are joking about the blood sacrifice thing, yeah?”   


“Too weak to pull it off?” Erica asked, grinning again. Was she partially shifted in the middle of the high school cafeteria? No, that was just her canines. “Yes, idiota. I’m kidding.”   


“Ah. Okay. Good. Not that I’m, you know, squeamish or anything. Wait, se habla español?”   


“Sí. Mi padre es Mexicano. Uh. Era. Ya está muerto.”   


“Lo siento.  Mi madre ha muerto, también. Accidente de coche. ¿Puedo preguntar cómo murió tu padre?”   


“Esto suena tonto. Pero era un ataque de lobo.”   


Shit - a wolf attack. Well, at least it made an easy segue. “Cristo. ¿Tú estabas allí cuando sucedió?”   


“Sí.” She clammed up after that, and he tried his saddest, sweetest smile. The one he used when he was trying to make Stiles feel bad for him because he had a deadbeat dad, and he wasn’t human any more, and he’d never had a girlfriend, and -   


“Esto va a sonar más loco.” Might as well go all out. She was safe. Her heartbeat was steady, she was in full control over her wolf.  “¿Es usted un licántropa?”   


Her eyebrows shot up so fast they almost ended up in her hairline. For a moment she looked as if she was going to deny everything, and then her scent changed to intensely curious and she narrowed her eyes. “Why? Are you?”   


He glanced around to check the proximity of the other three, and let himself shift just a little bit, let his scent out into the air and his eyes burn. “Yeah.”   


“Shit,” she breathed. “I thought I was the only one.” Then she didn’t know about Boyd, even though they were at least acquaintances.   


“So care to tell me what happened?”   


Erica deflated somewhat. “We were on a hike, this was a few months ago, now, and I started to have a seizure. I used to have epilepsy, believe it or not. So while I was having a fit, this huge...thing...attacked us. It bit all of us, before going on its merry way. I healed almost instantly. Like before the ambulance got there. My dad died in the hospital, he couldn’t take the bite. And Beacon Hills doesn’t have a supernatural ward. My mother escaped. I think she was gunned down in the preserve, though. I tried to track her by scent, but it just completely disappeared after a point, and I'm not great at tracking. Same with whatever it was that attacked us. Now I live with my mostly-senile abuela. I healed so fast the doctor assumed I hadn’t been attacked, I’m not registered or anything. But still. Went from dumpy girl too worried about having a seizure to really live to, well, una reina." She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes at him. God, she was like sixteen. He really hoped dating wouldn't end up being involved in this undercover ruse. "And you? What’s your story?”   


He shrugged. “My dad was a werewolf. Not that I knew until I met him, but nothing too weird had really happened to me until after my mom died in the crash. After that it sort of. All came out. Lots of emotional shit, you know how it gets. My step - uh, half-brother is human, though. The werewolf gene didn’t hit him at all. Not registered, either.”   


“You can be a werewolf from birth?” Erica asked, eyes wide. “That’s terrifying!”   


“I dunno, it sounds a bit more terrifying to be attacked out of the blue. Were there any police investigations or anything?”   


“They investigated my missing mother, but that case is cold. Do you know what could have happened to her? I’m still pretty new to the whole werewolf thing...”   


Scott shrugged, as the bell rang for the after-lunch period. “I don’t know. It was nice to meet you, do you have a cell phone? I can give you my number.”   


Scott Delgado, he wrote, followed by his undercover phone number. 415 area code. “Dude, who was she?” Stiles asked. “She’s gorgeous.”   


“Her name is Erica, and she’s like me,” Scott hissed softly, since cheekbones was in this class. More than one werewolf acquaintance in one day seemed to be pushing it. “How’s Argent’s daughter?”   


“She’s really nice. She introduced me to her BFF, Lydia. Scott, I have to tell you about Lydia. Like holy shit. That boy over there with the cheekbones is her boyfriend, he’s the lacrosse team captain. She’s...amazing, though. Like seriously. Amazing. I’ve never seen a girl like her.”   


_Her bf is also a werewolf_ , Scott wrote (in Klingon) in the margin of his notebook, since cheekbones had tilted his head their direction the moment the name ‘Lydia’ came up. _He’s listening to you._   


“Her fashion sense is amazing. Like, too bad I’m gay,” Stiles continued without skipping a breath after he read Scott’s message. “I could almost go straight for her. Almost.”   


_Two werewolves in a school this size?_ Stiles wrote as he continued to ramble about fashion and color coordination.   


_Four._ “God, you’re so gay,” Scott droned. “Like, literally homosexual. I seriously couldn’t care less about colors and shit.”   


_Shit. Rogue alpha's pack-recruiting spree?_ “Well, mister straight as a goddamn slinky, at least I don’t want to bone Jason Statham - “   


_Don’t think so. Pretty sure Erica’s alpha is dead._ “I don’t want to _bone_ him, I want to _be_ him.”   


_What about the others?_ “Please. You want to _be_ Michelle Rodriguez. Isn’t that so fucking hetero. Newsflash, if you’re a lady who’s not into dudes, you’re a lesbian. Meaning queer as shit. Even if it’s once-removed.”   


_Don’t know yet. Working on it. Anything suspicious about Allison?_ “Well, if I were Michelle Rodriguez, it wouldn’t matter who I was into, because nobody would be worthy of me.”   


The spent the rest of the class muttering back and forth under their breath, and briefing each other on the things they had found out in their notebooks. Cheekbones kept his head tilted practically the entire time, and Scott was careful to make sure he was well out of earshot before they took their communications to a verbal level. “That guy is terrifying,” was the first grievance he aired, as he climbed into Stiles’s jeep.   


“Cheekbones?” Stiles asked. “Yeah. I was getting a murder vibe off of him. So. Four werewolves.”   


“I’ve talked to the one who seems the most...secure in her werewolf-ness. Erica. Her entire family got bitten, her and her mom survived the bite, her mom broke out of the hospital and her trail goes cold. It’s a cold case. Erica took the bite really well, though. Like, I would have taken her for a werewolf since birth.”   


Stiles pulled into their pleasant, three bedroom two bath trackhouse, right next to the Argents’. Derek opened the door for them.   


“Can I have twenty dollars?” Stiles asked the moment the door opened.   


“For what?”   


"I don’t fucking know. I’m a teenager, I should go buy weed or something.”   


“Do you know a ‘Reyes’ family?” Scott asked as he pushed Stiles into the house and closed the door. “R-E-Y-E-S. And you can buy from Mike, with the checkered cargo pants.” They were from Washington, Scott could smell weed miles away. And that was before he got bitten.   


“No, no, and _no_.” Derek said. “Why? Did something happen at school?”   


Scott glanced out the window at the Argents’ empty driveway. “There are four werewolves in Beacon Hills High School.” Derek’s eyes widened almost ridiculously, and his eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. “Yeah. Four. I’ve got the story of one, I’m trying to figure out what order to approach the rest of them. I don’t think they’re aware of each other. Oh, and the Argent daughter’s perfume also has wolfsbane.”   


“I was told to shut up by five out of six teachers today,” Stiles added on. “Do we get an allowance?” Scott elbowed him.   


“Which one did you approach? Wait, let’s see if there are files on any of them - “   


There weren’t. And they weren’t going to be getting an allowance. Stiles threatened to quit for a solid three minutes and forty-seven seconds. They did find the article about Erica’s family, though. It listed her mother as a casualty.   


“She must have escaped the hospital the same night,” Derek said. “It is strange they wouldn’t say that, though. Seriously strange. What paper is this?”   


It was the Beacon Hills Tribune. A few hours of searching revealed that, according to the paper, not a single supernatural occurrence had ever happened in Beacon Hills in the history of ever. “Okay, there are four werewolves in the high school. And the only indication of it is that our lacrosse team has gone undefeated for the past few years,” Scott pointed out grumpily, and then froze. “Oh, shit, Stiles, we should actually do our homework.”   


“Do we have to? Can’t we just flash our badges at the teacher?”   


“No, Stiles,” Derek said. “Haven’t you already taken the classes? How long can it take?”   


“An amount,” Stiles said, deadpan. “An amount that could be devoted to weeding out more about this completely mundane trash newspaper.”   


“I can handle the mundane trash newspaper,” Derek said with his eyes shut and his hand pinching the bridge of his nose. “Go do your homework.”   


“But - “   


“Do. Your homework.” Stiles was staring at him - was he trying to do a puppy dog face? Is that what that was? Derek could do a better puppy dog face. “Homework, now, or I’ll rip out your throat with my teeth and we’ll find out much quicker if the Argents are hunting werewolves.”   


“He’s not kidding,” Scott threw in, helpfully. “But if we’re just getting to be reckless, I’ll shift and climb through Argent’s window in the middle of the night. Naked,” he added, less helpfully. And then he grinned and shifted.   


“Homework, or - “ what was it parents said? “You’re grounded.”   


Stiles groaned and threw his hands over his head overdramatically before heading up the stairs, loudly banging his backpack on every stair as he slouched. Scott continued to stand there and smile at him.   


“That means you, too, McCall.”   


The kid shrugged, grabbed his backpack, and leapt up the stairs in a single bound. “Have fun with your busywork!” he yelled.   


The busywork was completely unhelpful, and it definitely didn’t sound like his trainee children were doing their homework. However, it did come up that the matriarch of the Argent family was one of the executive editors. That was certainly interesting. She was also on the PTA, the Neighborhood Watch, the local 4-H group, and was the leader of the Stitch n’ Bitch club at the retirement home.   


He was going to have to talk to Victoria Argent.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this is late! Sorry, my computer broke.

And this was how the next day he ended up at the front counter of the newspaper office, asking if there were any jobs available.

“Sorry, not right now, we’ve just taken in a bunch of interns from the community college a few miles up. Do you have any articles you’d like to submit? We do take freelancers.” The front desk secretary raised her eyebrows and stared at him in a rather obvious display of ‘I’d definitely like you to buy me a drink and then bend me over a table.’ He had been hoping for that, which is why he’d switched out the windbreaker for his leather jacket. He knew there were no jobs, he just needed some sort of in.

“Oh - no, I don’t,” Derek said, trying his most charming smile. “I’m not much of a writer myself, I mostly just translate.”

“That’s interesting - what language?”

“French, mostly. I speak Québécois French, but lately I’ve been translating into European French. I don’t suppose you’d need any translating done, though.”

“Not that I know of. Can you say something?”

“ _Puis-je vous offrir à boire?_ ” he said with a smile. “That means ‘can I buy you a drink.’”

“I thought you came in here to look for a job,” she replied, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head back, exposing her throat. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Derek. Is that a no?”

“ _Oui_. I’m not looking for a relationship right now, and it would be unprofessional for me to pursue a relationship with someone I met on the pretence of a job search. I’m not going to lay out the casting couch. I’ll give you my name, though. Jennifer.”

Ouch. Came on too strong.

“I can accept that, Jennifer,” he said with a closed-mouth, semi-self-depricating smile. “Well, if I can’t get a job, I’m also looking for help with a novel translation. Do you just know the word yes or could I request your professional assistance on that front?”

“My French extends to _yes, no_ , and _where is the bathroom_ , so no. One of our editors is French, though. You may have heard of her. Victoria Argent. She has many fingers in many pies.”

According to Google and the FBI Database, Derek wanted nothing to do with Victoria Argent’s fingers. Nor her pies. But it was a good segue.

“Is she by chance married to a Chris Argent? I think we might be neighbors.” He gave a surprised face and leaned back just a little bit.

“Tall guy, silver fox, gun salesman?” He nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. Big hit at company parties.”

“Well shit - um, shoot.” He forced a slight blush. “Would it be weird if I dropped by to ask? Could you like, let her know that I’ll come by or something?”

“I’ll let her know. Derek - what’s your last name?”

“Delgado. D-E-L-G-A-D-O.”

“Derek Delgado, might drop by to ask about French translation. Neighbor. Leather jacket. And, sent. Anything else?”

“Not really, thank you so much, though.” He smiled and started to back away to leave.

“Drive safe,” Jennifer replied sweetly. “And be careful. It’s a full moon tonight, this town tends to get spooked.”

Derek’s heart skipped a beat, but he smiled at her and left the building.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

“It means you’re not the only one,” Scott whispered to Boyd, who had his head stooped and his eyes almost shut. “It’s all right.”

Lunch day one project was Erica, lunch day two project was Boyd. Scott had sat down with Erica and begun discussing chemistry class, and Boyd had come by a few minutes later and hesitantly sat down with them. “I’m Boyd,” he said gruffly. “You’re new.”

Scott hadn’t planned on approaching him next - he was thinking curly hair, then Boyd, then cheekbones, whose name was apparently Jackson, but hell, he wasn’t going to let this opportunity fly by.

For a brief while he had considered keeping the Beacon Hills werewolves unaware of each other, but that would have been cruel. Stiles agreed, quietly but firmly, and the two of them against Derek wore him down into accepting this plan.

“I know you grew up surrounded by werewolves, but we didn’t all get that luxury, _dad_ ,” Scott had said. “And yes, I know our prerogative is the Argents, but if they’re in danger from them they deserve to at least know that they’re not alone.”

And looking at Boyd, after Scott had casually slipped into conversation that he was a werewolf, Scott knew they had made the right choice. “Did you see the news from New York last week?” Boyd asked after a moment. “Kid got banned from prom because it was set on a full moon and they didn’t wanna risk an accident.”

Scott gently rubbed Boyd’s shoulder as Erica looked on with wide eyes. “I saw. I know. Trust me, I know.”

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Jackson sit down with curly hair - and Allison leaned forward and gently kissed him on the cheek. Holy shit. Holy shit. God damn he should have gone to curly first. He managed to control his heart rate to keep Boyd calm, the last thing he needed was an anxious fairly recently turned werewolf on the full moon.

“And you’re one too?” Boyd said to Erica. “We almost dated and you didn’t - “ he sighed and massaged his temples. “I didn’t tell you, either. It’s not even like the world doesn’t know we exist, that’s the sort of shit you should warn a partner about. God, I’m sorry, Erica.”

“It’s all right, Boyd,” Erica said gently. Her heartbeat was strong but steady. “I didn’t know how to tell you. That - that’s part of why I broke it off, actually.”

“We’re so stupid,” Boyd groaned. “Ugh. I’m busy tonight, but we should do. Something. Sometime.”

“Busy?” Scott asked. “ _Busy_ busy or full moon busy?”

Boyd shrugged. “I lock myself in the supply room at the ice rink I work at for full moons. I’ve got control but I’m not perfect. You wanna come?”

Scott had barricaded himself in an abandoned basement after Stiles’s miserable _handcuff-you-to-a-radiator_ plan had failed within five minutes. The basement worked the first few times, but eventually he woke up on the Oregon border with a dead and eviscerated rabbit as a pillow. How the hell was Boyd holding up? And how was his supply closet still whole?

“I’ve been at this for a long time, I’ve got it handled. I can try and help, if you want? My dad’s a werewolf, too, he’s got a lot of techniques.”

“Hold up, your dad’s a werewolf? That shit gets _passed down_?”

“It’s a lottery. My half-brother, from the same dad, didn’t get it. I didn’t find out till my mom died, though. Nothing too weird had happened before then. I don’t really like to talk about it. But are you in?”

Boyd blinked a few times, before shaking his head. “Maybe next time, but not tonight. I’ve been steeling myself all day, don’t wanna change my plans,” he said, and he pulled out a flip phone. “Can I get your number, though? I don’t have texting, but can I call if I need you?”

“Of course, dude,” Scott said as he entered his number. “We’re in the same boat, so we’re family as far as I’m concerned.”

“And you can just - tell? Just like that? Do we smell different or something?”

“I was wondering about that, too,” Erica said quietly. “How did you know?”

Scott shrugged. “I’ve been a werewolf for a while, you just sort of learn things as you go along. I guess it’s scent, but I think it’s more about pack. What’s your story with that? Did you just get bitten out of the blue, too?”

Boyd grimaced. “Basically. Got high, decided to visit my sister’s grave - she had a lot of issues. She ended her own life. It was about nine months ago, now.” That was around the time Erica’s family was killed, too. Erica was thinking that - Scott heard her breathing change. “And I heard something in the trees. I thought it was some disrespectful fucking kids, you know, harassing the dead at night, so I started walking over there and yellin at them, and then this big-ass shape comes out of the black and claws the shit out of me. I tried to run but it bit me right...here,” he put his hand on his shoulder. “And then it ran off. I didn’t have a phone at the time, you know how fast those shitty little pay-as-you-go phones get busted. So I started to run back to my house, but by the time I got there the wounds didn’t even hurt any more. My family couldn’t afford a hospital trip, and you know how cops are with kids. Especially black kids. Especially black kids with fantastic stories, who were still coming down from being high.” Scott grimaced and nodded. “So I poured some alcohol on that shit and when I woke up, I was fine. Got a pretty rude awakening when I tore my doorknob off, though. All sort of went downhill from there.”

Scott nodded. “I feel that. The bell’s about to ring. Do you want me to check on you in the morning or anything?”

Erica smiled softly. “I can, too, if you need. Hell, I’ll lock myself in with you - “

“Not a good idea,” Scott cut in. “You’ll fight. I know you’ve got a good handle on it, Erica, but being around other werewolves, especially when you’re both omegas, is different.”

“We _could_ be pack,” she said stubbornly. “How can you know I’m an omega?”

“Your alpha is dead, or at least isn’t at all interested in having you, and you haven’t been drawn to anybody else. Same with you, Boyd.”

The bell rang. “I think we have physics together,” Scott said to Boyd. “So I’ll see you later? Both of you call me or text or whatever if you need anything.”

_Is Allison dating that boy?_ Scott wrote as the dullest lecture in the entire world began _. The one she kissed?_

Stiles nodded, and made an exaggerated frowning face.

_Should I talk to him? Did he seem good for the full moon?_

Stiles nodded again, and picked up his pen. _He’s in too much danger, he should at least know he’s got a support network. What’s up with baldy?_

_He’s relieved. Name is Boyd. I think he was bitten by the same alpha as Erica. Same timeframe, similar M.O. I have his phone number. He locks himself in a storage closet on full moons, I offered to have me or daddy dearest help him out._

_That’s good at least. Cheekbones - Jackson - doesn’t know about Isaac, I’m certain of that. He seemed really on edge. How are you holding up?_

_Bit anxious, I’ll be fine._

The day of the full moon always felt like he was on the verge of a panic attack, but instead of fear threatening to rise out of nowhere and swallow him whole until there was nothing left, it was anger. It sat deep in his belly, as though it was a bonfire and his heart and lungs were slowly roasting on top of it. It made him want to hunch in on himself and lie down, and let his wolf handle every little thing that tried to put out that fire.

He was at the point where the fire felt more like a slow burn than an imminent threat, but the fact that there was a burn in the first place always made him cautious.

_You’ll have Derek. He’s an alpha, even if he’s not your alpha. And you’ll always have me._

_I know. I love you for it._

Stiles made a face that meant ‘you big sap’ and then checked his phone.

From Derek -

_Planning on dropping in on the Argents tonight, have a cover reason. You?_

He tapped back,

_all teachers have told me to shut up so far. scott talked to Boyd. werewolves here seem to have enough control to be at school on a full moon. how are you?_

A few minutes passed.

_Behave better. I don’t want to come to a parent-teacher conference. Pretty sure newspaper is a front for something. I’m fine. How’s Scott?_

He texted like a prick. Of course.

_He’s fine. you can text him too, you know. front for what?_

Scott elbowed him - the teacher was giving him a pointed look. Stiles made a face and shoved his phone in his pocket. It vibrated moments later, but he didn’t take it out again until he was certain he was in the clear.

_Pretty sure Scott has the integrity to not text in class. And unsure. Suspicious secretary. Suspicious town. Very Stepford._

Stiles tapped out a message to Scott. _would you check ur texts in class?_

Next to him, Scott rummaged in his pocket, and seconds later - _youre a fucking dumbass_

_scott can and will text in class, tyvm. and i’m surprised you’ve seen that movie._

Shit, teacher looking again. _stop messaging me im getting Looks_

Physics the next period, Scott kept muttering under his breath. It took Stiles several minutes to notice that Boyd was also mouthing words quietly - fucking werewolf communication. The most useful part of being a werewolf was probably the enhanced hearing.

Stiles was by no means jealous of Scott. How could he be? They had gotten separated after a call about a body that turned out to be a prank, and next thing he knew his best friend was a ghost. Not literally a ghost, because he was literally a werewolf, but the point was he wasn’t himself. He jumped at every sound, flinched at every sudden movement, and if someone so much as looked at him strangely his shoulders hunched in and his fists clenched. “I don’t know what’s up with you, but you’re starting to scare me,” Stiles had finally said, a few days afterwards. And then, without hesitation, Scott came clean about what had happened when they were separated.

“I didn’t want to yell and make the cops notice me, and I started to have an asthma attack but I dropped my inhaler. And then - I don’t know what happened, there was this thing on me and it was sniffing me and then it bit me. It fucking howled, Stiles, I don’t even know - and it sprinted away. On all fours. It was so big though, it was so fucking big, and I had a full-blown asthma attack that just turned into hyperventilating, and then that stopped too, and the wound was gone and it was morning and I just. God, Stiles.”

He had to pause and take a few deep breaths, and Stiles softly put his hand on Scott’s shoulder and squeezed. “Is it, like, PTSD or something?”

“I don’t think so.” He didn’t talk for several long moments. “Everything just feels - different. I’m hearing shit I really shouldn’t be able to hear. Your heartbeat right now. It’s so fast, it’s really fast. I can smell that mint gum in your pocket. I haven’t felt a hint of asthma. I WebMD’d it all and it said I’ve either got the worst migraine the world has ever seen, or I’m a werewolf. A fucking werewolf. Do you know what they do to werewolves in towns like this?”

Stiles really wished he could have said “Werewolves aren’t real,” but they were. Rare, but certainly existent. There was no way he could deny it. Hell, a werewolf was running for congress in Massachusetts. Werewolves and banshees and vampires and magic, all real, and all not being integrated into standard (or “mundane” as some groups were calling it) society. Every few months a ‘mythical creature’ was being introduced into the public sphere, and in the next few weeks literal witch hunts had confirmed their existence, alongside their exceptionally high murder rates. “Hunter factions” were popping up all over the place.

“Yes. Yes and it won’t happen to you, I swear to every god that has ever existed. I’ll do some research. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.”

Scott had made several choking noises that were somewhere between sobs and actual choking, and clenched his fists and started breathing deeply. “It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,” Stiles continued, trying not to panic.

“No, I can’t _breathe_ ,” Scott gasped out. “It’s so much worse right now, Stiles, I - “ He stumbled up and started running - faster than Stiles had ever seen him (or possibly anyone) run. It had taken almost an hour to find him in the men’s locker room showers, curled up with icy cold water running over him. “I think I’m good. I think I’m good. The full moon is in like three days. Holy shit. I’m so fucked.”

So even though Scott was pretty good now, there were still times when Stiles was reminded how viciously his life was changed. He would never take the bite, even if it were offered, it wasn’t something he could do to himself. And even if he could, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to Scott. If Scott didn’t get a choice, why should _he_?

“What are you two talking about?” Stiles whispered. Scott blinked, and started writing, even as he continued to talk to Boyd.

_He wants to know more about us._

“Scott’s a moron, don’t listen to anything he says,” Stiles whispered, and saw Boyd grin a little bit, even as Scott rolled his eyes.

_He says it’s cool how cool you are with the werewolf shit._

“Yeah, I’m cool. Want to know what it’s like knowing every minor detail of the Star Wars trilogies when your brother hasn’t even seen Star Wars? Because it sucks.”

“Shut up, Stilinski,” the teacher said. Stiles quickly tapped out a _five for five so far, gonna go for the gold_. And sent it to Derek.

_Yeah Stiles, shut up. Those movies sound boring anyways. He wants to know how I’ve never seen Star Wars._

“He refuses to watch them, it’s some sort of curse that’s been put on me. It’s hard to bear, trust me.”

_You’re hard to bear._

“You need to pay more attention in class,” Derek told them later that night after they relayed their day. “How do I look?”

“Not like a Dad, that’s for damn sure. Go get your windbreaker,” Stiles said. Derek flipped him off. That meant they were friends now, right?

“I don’t think they’re in,” Scott said quietly. “Listen, the house sounds _empty._ ”

Derek cocked his head. “He’s right. Stiles, get your computers and see if you can get through their video security.”

Stiles immediately ran to his room and gathered two laptops, his headphones, and his plastic container of Adderall.

“Wait,” Scott said slowly. “Are we about to break in to their house?”

Derek nodded, and Stiles yelled “Yes!” and thrust his fists into the air. Scott exhaled slowly.

“Sweet.”


End file.
